Part I

the passenger arrives, gun a ready, taut after centuries of sleeping, starving for change. the magnetal doors slide apart, aglow, hissing in a dramatic sort of hydraulic way. she steps across the gap into fluorescent light, tiled pillars, papers against the wall fluttering still in the afterbath of the halted train, a catacomb of entrance, the passageway out of the dream of rushing, sleek metal on rail. she is at a point, a place, a station called Heranta. i will not describe her features. what is important is how she holds them, carries her cheekbones forward sharp and balanced through the waiting air, trailing herself like a stone dropped in basin-water, folding in to her center where the breath falls emptying itself to be renewed, finally relaxing little by little after all this time, after being so stiff for so long. now she is ready.
i will not watch her climb the stairs. no, this is not a commercial.
through the hallways, lighted and strewn with all the miscellany of a days passing, the inevitable fallen and crumpled words, discarded gum, wrappers.
her steps echoing in architectural space. what thoughts have moved through here, what driving purposes, what crossed paths, what streaming current of humanity, with wondering, grasping, hardened faces floating around each other like fireflies, like ants all following their own trail to some knowledge of shelter, sustenance, identity. tugged along by the lines of their relationships, the gravity of the assured.
she is come to meet the end of a long roping winding sharp-hooked and painful road.